Clean energy industry holds key to brighter future for Michigan

As of March, Michigan’s unemployment rate was about 14.9 percent. For me and other students at Michigan State University, that’s not a number that gives us very much hope for finding a job in a few years when we graduate.

We need to look for solutions that can help Michigan’s economy grow again. One solution is to invest in clean energy, one of the world’s fastest growing industries. By developing clean energy industries, as many as 42,000 jobs can be created in Michigan, with up to 1.9 million jobs nationwide. These jobs can be in a wide variety of industries — designing energy-efficient buildings, rebuilding our electric grid and inventing new clean-energy technologies.

It’s time we make the right investments that will let Americans prosper, and especially investments that will help make Michigan prosper once again. This can be done if we invest in clean energy.